Centre for Cities

City Minutes: How to level up... transport

What regional inequalities do different parts of the UK face? And which policies should the Government implement to bridge these divides and level up the country?

City Minutes is exploring these questions in a mini-series on how to level up the UK.

In the third episode, host Andrew Carter speaks with Centre for Cities’ Researcher Tom Sells to discuss the policy interventions needed to level up the public transport system in cities and large towns.

Find all of our work on how to level up the UK here.

City Minutes: How to level up... high streets and city centres

What regional inequalities do different parts of the UK face? And which policies should the Government implement to bridge these divides and level up the country?

City Minutes is exploring these questions in a mini-series on how to level up the UK.

In the second episode, host Andrew Carter speaks with Centre for Cities’ Analyst Valentine Quinio to discuss the challenges that our high streets and city centres face, and the policy interventions needed to support them.

Find all of our work on how to level up the UK here.

City Minutes: How Covid-debt and Covid-saving will shape post-pandemic cities

The UK’s lockdown and restrictions have meant that some people are likely to have accumulated savings over the past 15 months, which could now be used to refuel the economy as we enter the recovery phase. However, Centre for Cities’ latest research reveals these Covid-savings are not distributed evenly across the country, as not everyone has had the same experience of the pandemic.

Elena Magrini and Tom Sells - authors of Centre for Cities’ recent report - join Chief Executive Andrew Carter to share their reflections on how the pandemic has affected people’s spending, saving and debt in different ways and what this means for the recovery of the UK’s cities and largest towns.

City Minutes: How to level up.... skills

What regional inequalities do different parts of the UK face? And which policies should the Government implement to bridge these divides and level up the country?

Over the next few weeks City Minutes will explore these questions in a mini-series on how to level up the UK.

In the first episode, host Andrew Carter speaks with Centre for Cities’ Senior Analyst and skills expert Elena Magrini to discuss the education-related challenges that people in different cities and towns face, and the policy interventions needed to support them.

Find all of our work on how to level up the UK here.

City Minutes: The legacy of sporting events on urban economies

Hosting an iconic sporting event such as the Olympic or Commonwealth Games can help to put a city on the international stage, but do they have a positive long-term economic effect?

For this episode of City Minutes, Senior Analyst Anthony Breach joins Chief Executive Andrew Carter to debate whether big sporting events can make a long-term difference to cities' economies and discuss what policymakers should consider to ensure that these events deliver real long-term economic improvements.

City Talks: Professor Will Jennings on "The Politics of Levelling Up"

Covid-19 has made the job of levelling up, the agenda elevated by the current Government to address the deep geographical inequalities present within the UK, much harder.

The levelling up narrative is made up of many strands and is a concept that has been seen by some as complex, undefined and ambiguous, prompting the question what does the future hold for the agenda over the next twelve months and beyond?

For this episode of City Talks, Andrew Carter is joined by Will Jennings, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Southampton and co-founder of Centre for Towns, who speaks about the realignment of British politics; the political value of levelling up; the five contradictions it imposes; and wider conversations surrounding the agenda within the framework of his latest work.

“The Politics of Levelling Up” is co-authored by Will Jennings, Laurence McKay and Gerry Stoker and published in The Political Quarterly.

This episode is part of the Centre for Cities City Talks podcast series. Please rate, review and share the episode if you enjoyed it.

City Minutes: What do the 2021 metro mayoral elections mean for England's cities?

Last week eight metro mayors were elected to govern England's largest city regions. While the Conservatives cemented their position in parts of the former Red Wall, Labour made gains elsewhere, including in Southern England.

What do these results mean for people living in cities, and how will the Government respond to several new Labour metro mayors? To discuss these questions Andrew Carter is joined by Centre for Cities' Senior Analyst Anthony Breach.

City Talks: Policies, politics and personalities in this year’s mayoral elections

On 6 May, around 20 million people in England will be voting to elect a metro mayor to lead on making important decisions at the local level in their city region. While the position of Mayor of London has existed since 2000, this year, Greater Manchester voters will be electing their metro mayor for the second time round and it will be the first election of its kind taking place in West Yorkshire.

What’s the current state of play in these three places? Which candidates are making waves? What challenges will they face post-election?

For this episode of City Talks, Andrew Carter is joined by Francesca Gains, Professor of Public Policy and Academic Co-Director of Policy@Manchester at the University of Manchester, Rob Parsons, Political Editor of The Yorkshire Post and Richard Brown, Interim Director at Centre for London, to get a sense of the state of play in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and London.

City Minutes: How to build back better from Covid-19

As the UK’s Covid-19 vaccination programme progresses policy makers should be planning how to repair the economic damage done by the pandemic and build back better.

Centre for Cities’ latest research, in partnership with HSBC UK, examines how and where jobs were created following the last Financial Crisis to inform thinking about what is likely to happen post-Covid-19.

It found that the jobs crisis is bigger than realised and the economy will need to create almost ten million new private sector jobs just to reverse the damage done in the past year.

To discuss the paper in more detail, Andrew Carter is joined by Centre for Cities’ Senior Analyst Kathrin Enenkel and Researcher Tom Sells.

City Talks: Jason Segedy and Kenan Fikri on America’s Legacy Cities

America’s Legacy Cities, which include the likes of Akron, Cleveland and Detroit, grew fast and large in the first half of the 20^th Century, then underwent social and economic decline post World War II. These industrial cities share a common history, not dissimilar to the industrial cities of the North of England.

For this episode of City Talks, Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Jason Segedy, Director of Planning and Urban Development for the City of Akron, Ohio and the Economic Innovation Group’s (EIG) first Legacy Cities Fellow, and Kenan Fikri, Director of Research and Policy Development at the EIG.

Together, they discuss the origins and aims of the Legacy Cities Programme, providing insight into the shared histories of America’s industrial heartland, as well as debating policy responses to the challenges and opportunities that these cities currently face.

The Economic Innovation Group’s Legacy Cities Series is a collection of research and commentary on America’s older industrial cities.

Kenan is the co-author of the Economic Innovation Group’s briefing Uplifting America’s Left Behind Places: A Roadmap for a More Equitable Economy.

Jason also writes a personal blog: Notes from the Underground.

This episode is part of the Centre for Cities City Talks series. Please rate, review and share the episode if you enjoyed it.